UCLA Safety McGill Stars in First Start

The ball seemed to hang in the night air like a balloon.

“I saw it and said, ‘That’s me,’ ” Mark McGill said of the second-quarter pass by Arizona State quarterback Paul Justin after it had caromed skyward off flanker Lynn James. “I said, ‘I’m going to get it.’ And I went and got it.”

The UCLA safety clutched it and took off down the sideline.

“Our position coach (Larry Coyer) always talks about catching the ball, tucking it away and running like Billy Sims,” McGill said. “That’s all I was thinking. I was trying to score.

“Somehow, that quarterback--I don’t know how he got my feet. I tried to hurdle him, and the next thing I knew, Eric (Turner, a teammate) was on top of me.”

Justin had thrown himself at McGill, tripping him up eight yards short of the goal line.

Still, the elated McGill, a fifth-year senior making the first start of his UCLA career, had made a major contribution, setting up the touchdown that gave the Bruins a 14-0 lead to send them on their way to a 33-14 win Saturday night at the Rose Bowl.

“I guess I just had to wait for the opportunity to come,” said McGill, who has played only sparingly at UCLA but started against ASU in relief of injured sophomore Matt Darby, sidelined because of a pinched nerve in his neck. “The door opened, so I had to go in there and show them what I could do.”

McGill, who made nine tackles, is testament to a belief among many that UCLA has recruited as well in recent years as any team in college football and that Bill Rees, the Bruins’ recruiting coordinator, is among the best in the business.

A high school All-American five years ago as a quarterback at South High School in Bakersfield, McGill was used infrequently in his first three seasons at UCLA. Even this season, after Anthony Burnett flunked out of school, McGill was thought to be no better than UCLA’s third-string strong safety.

With Darby out, he was listed No. 2 last week behind Patrick Bates, a highly regarded freshman from Galveston, Tex.

But when McGill played so well against ASU, it came as no surprise to Coach Terry Donahue.

“We expect that,” Donahue said. “We tell our players: ‘You’d better be ready because you’re a play away from going (in).’ When you’re called upon, you’ve got to go.

“He wasn’t the star of the game by any stretch of the imagination, but he did a nice job.”

McGill said it’s to his advantage that he is a former quarterback.

“A lot of times, I know what the quarterback is looking for,” he said. “Exactly what he’s looking for, as a matter of fact.”

McGill was a prolific passer in a pro-style offense in high school, completing 54% of his attempts as a senior for 1,719 yards and 22 touchdowns and throwing for a school-record 3,082 yards in three years as a varsity starter.

Several schools, including Colorado and California, recruited him as a quarterback, he said, but McGill had long dreamed of playing at UCLA, which recruited him to be a defensive back.

“I just liked the ol’ powder blue and gold,” he said.

As a senior at South High, McGill had six interceptions, but, he said, “I had been (primarily) a quarterback and I didn’t grasp, or really have a concept of, what it meant to be a safety at a Pac-10 school.

“My second year, I started to learn what a safety is supposed to do. It’s really an impact position. It’s the last line of defense, and you can really set the tone of a game.”

McGill improved, but in the spring before his sophomore year, he broke a foot and fell to the bottom of the depth chart.

It has been difficult, he said, to spend so much time on the sideline, waiting for a call from the coaches that seldom comes.

Last season, McGill participated in only 26 scrimmage plays, almost half of them in a 56-3 rout of Cal State Long Beach.

Was it frustrating?

“Of course,” he said. “You sit around and you contemplate not playing. It’s very frustrating at times because you know you could be out there doing what (the regulars) are doing. You just sit back and say, ‘Golly, I just want to get in there and do something--put my time in and show them that I can do something.’ ”

That time came last week.

Coyer, the secondary coach who described the 6-foot, 197-pound McGill as a “class guy” and “the type of player who hangs in there until he finally gets a chance,” said it was a thrill to see him start.

McGill, of course, also was thrilled to be starting.

But he said, “Actually, I wasn’t that nervous. I was more nervous when I got out there than I was before the game. When I got out there, it was like, ‘I’m really here. I’m really starting.’

“But it felt so good. I hadn’t been out there since high school, and I was just so hyper.”

He’d like nothing better than a chance to relive the experience.

“Now that I’ve shown them I can play, I hope to be worked into the game a lot more,” he said.

Even if it doesn’t happen, though, he can’t say he didn’t make the most of his opportunity.

“This is my last year, and I had faith that I was going to come through sometime,” he said. “I just didn’t know when. I was waiting.”

His wait has ended.

Bruin Notes

Starting strong safety Matt Darby is listed as questionable for UCLA’s game against Arizona Saturday at 12:30 p.m., PDT, in Tucson. . . . Linebacker Craig Davis made 19 tackles against Arizona State, enjoying the best game of his career, Coach Terry Donahue said.

Shawn Wills, who ran for 79 yards in 23 carries against Arizona State, will probably start again at tailback ahead of Brian Brown, but Donahue said: “I really haven’t finalized it or put it in granite.” Brown gained 48 yards in 12 carries last week. . . . Receiver Mike Farr replaced Wills as the Bruins’ punt returner, Wills said, because Donahue wanted a more sure-handed player returning punts. Wills lost a fumbled punt inside the five-yard line two weeks ago against California.

Offensive guard Rick Meyer had the flu last week, lost 11 pounds and played only sparingly against ASU, giving way to sophomore Scott Spalding. . . . Arizona, which is 3-2 overall and 2-1 in the Pacific 10 Conference, did not play last week.